Yuu Kasuga
Yuu Kasuga (also referred to by her code name, STRENGTH or STR) is a government agent working for the J.N.V.D.O. to protect Japan from supernatural monsters. Mortally wounded as a child, her parents gave custody of her to the agency in an attempt to save her life. Her body was remade with cybernetics, and she currently serves as their primary weapon. Recently, she has been transferred to V.W.A.T. as part of an exchange program to further communication and trust between the groups, but was tasked with the secret mission of collecting information on the American government while there. Appearance Yuu is a small girl, barely over five feet in height. Her tan skin is contrasted by her short white hair and pale, expressionless eyes. Though her features are normally covered with her coat, she has a small face with a button nose and thin lips without any distinguishing marks other than her slightly puffy cheeks. Due to a number of operations, the end of her metal vertebrae are extended, sticking out of the base of her back to use as a weapon, colored black. At her elbows, in place of normal appendages, she has her massive black metal “Ogre Arms”. Her clothing was chosen by her handlers at the J.N.V.D.O. to be both functional for her job and to show citizens she is to be their protector. She wears a short, sleeveless black dress with a large collar and hood, a white zipper in front. The collar obscures the lower portion of her face while the hood hides most of the upper part of her head. Around the collar is a decorative white flame design. A small fist symbol (representing the J.N.V.D.O.) is on the left side of her chest to show her allegiance. On her legs are black stockings, rising to about mid-thigh and ending with white bows on the outsides, with black, metal lift shoes to give her a small amount of height and stabilize her legs and feet when jumping and landing long distances. Personality Yuu was taken in by the government at a young age, and as such remembers very little of her previous life. This saddens her greatly, though she does recall both her parents loved her, as well as some of the story books and toys she used to have. Despite a relatively good relationship with her mechanic and a few of the doctors (the only people she could potentially call friends in the world), she has closed herself to people in general out of fear. She is rarely happy, and rarely allows herself to feel much of anything in general. Her mechanic is the only one she has ever felt comfortable opening up to, a young man in his early thirties, as she is able to trust him enough to keep her alive and working well. Never learning much in the ways of “common sense”, she can be naïve and foolish at times, though is far from stupid. She does not know how to deal well with others. If someone were to yell at her, she would most likely begin to shut down and stop listening, or burst into tears and cover her head. This only applies to social situations, though, since she generally tries to tune out distractions while in battle and focus singularly on completing the mission without thinking. She despises her name STRENGTH and takes it as her being nothing but a weapon to be tossed into the field on a whim (which many of her handlers see her as), and would prefer people not to use it in casual conversation. Even so, she forces herself to use this introduction in formal settings, as her identity is meant as a secret. Despite this, those “close” to her abide by her wishes and use her real name when not around any of the superior officers. Despite her official rank, Yuu has no real authority when it comes to dictating her life. Her daily schedule is set for her by the doctors and military personnel and her free time is always monitored. This lack of freedom gives her a feeling of even greater confinement. Though she would initially enjoy things such as reading and (attempting) to play with toys, she quickly lost interest after everything she was doing became printed on a clipboard. Now, all she really does is sit in her room until it is time for the next mission or maintenance. A doctor, Hokuto was sent with her to America during the transfer. He has been with her for many years and is the closest thing to a friend she has. She cares for him deeply for being one of the few people to treat her as a person, rather than a weapon. Despite an internalized dismissal of it, she has formed a bond with the immortal Megali (Achilles) after their mission together, due to their similar nature as prisoners to their bodies and the people they work for. She keeps a small rag as a small token of this growing affection. History Yuu had a fairly normal childhood until the age of six. Both her parents loved her dearly and wanted to give her the best life she could have. At the age of five, however, a freak car accident nearly killed her while she was chasing a ball into the street. Rushed to the hospital, her parents were told that, while they could save her life, Yuu would be completely paralyzed. About to give up hope, a shady man in a suit informed them that there was a way to save their child’s life, but it would be at the cost of never being able to see her again. While the situation may seem out of place to most, this was Japan, so most had come to terms with the idea of a shadow organization needing small children for their experiments. Without any amount of sarcasm, it was the government's intention to have children in their program; they followed orders much better than adults, and ones that had already been broken physically would be easier to break mentally. The man was one of the agents, having been watching the hospital for several days now to try and find a suitable candidate for testing. The hardest decision they would ever be forced to make, her parents reluctantly agreed to the man’s offer, thinking it would be better for her never to see them again than to live her whole life in a hospital bed. Shipped off to a government lab, numerous hours of painful surgery gifted Yuu with an enhanced skeleton, returning her the use of her body and increasing her physical abilities. Her arms, mangled in the crash, were replaced by a prototype weapon dubbed the “Imp Arms”. Initially overjoyed at being okay, she was quickly stunned and saddened at the fact she would never see her parents again, as well as being totally unable to perform ordinary tasks, even to hold a pencil, due to lack of coordination. It would take her three years to fully master these new appendages (numerous bones replacements to compensate for her growth not helping the fact), all the while being trained into one of Japan’s greatest weapon. She now belonged to the Japanese National Vampire Defense Organization. As years went by, the girl became more and more withdrawn, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the way her body was becoming, especially after the perfection of her weaponry, now known as the “Ogre Arms”, making her completely unable to appear like a normal girl, coupled with the strange transformation of her artificial spine into a weapon. All the while, she missed her family, the memories of her time with them growing more and more muddied each day. Her first mission came in 2009, tasked with a simple extermination. Though three agents were sent as backup, she killed the target on her own without effort. Initially frightened by her power and the prospect of killing, she grew numb to it eventually and no longer has any feeling towards it. Accepting her place as a weapon, she no longer hopes to reunite with her parents, nor of being anything more than a tool for killing. As a show of good faith, she was transferred to V.W.A.T. in America, both to solidify to bond between the two groups (and, by extension, countries), but also to give them a chance to test new subjects without Yuu’s knowledge. Foreign Friends Yuu first set foot in America on September 29, 2014. She is greeted by Claire Kelly of V.W.A.T. and a team of three Green Beret soldiers to securely transfer her from the landing site to the base not far away. However, their van was attacked by a team of Lycans, with one of the soldiers, Sarah McFinn, revealing herself to be a member of an organization known as the Sons of Fenrir. While successful in fighting the group off, McFinn and the surviving Lycans escaped before they could be questioned. They were rescued by V.W.A.T. shortly after. Enter the Dragon Yuu's first mission after arriving at the base was in Washington. Flown across the country, she and the immortal warrior Achilles were tasked with eliminating a destructive dragon. Infiltrating the dragon's lair, they battled and eventually killed the beast, revealed the be a mage with the ability to transform herself into a dragon. Despite the protests of another soldier, Achilles killed the woman while she took human form. Yuu's arms were greatly damaged in the process. They left shortly after on the cargo plane they arrived in. Not long after, however, a malfunction in the plane's engines caused it to crash, injuring Yuu and killing the soldiers. Being immobile and without an arm, she relied on Achilles' help to find civilization and make it back to base. Powers and Abilities Hand to Hand Combat: While not trained in any particular form of combat (since her body would not be able to adapt to it), she fights using battle instinct honed through training. She capitalizes on her tremendous size to brute force her way through most foes, crushing, pounding, and throwing enemies to cause enough damage to kill them. Cybernetic Enhancements: Most of her body has been improved in some way over a normal human. In addition to enhanced strength used to easily wield her arms, her ankles have been reinforced to be able to withstand falling from great heights. Her stamina is greatly improved over normal from a constant need to carry the incredible weight of her body. A downside to all her enhancements is the need for large amounts of nutrients, requiring vitamin pills with meals. Gymnastics: As surprising as it sounds, Yuu is a very capable gymnast. Rather than training with equipment, she has practiced moving around her arms to increase her dexterity, allowing her to evade attacks quicker than expected by most opponents. Multilingual: Yuu was taught a variety of languages. She is a native Japanese speaker, but also knows English, French, Spanish, and can understand International Sign Language. While she can read these languages just as well as speaking, she cannot write them for obvious reasons. Healing Factor: While useless for combat, small machinery in her body stimulates healing in parts of her body where her flesh is connected to her cybernetics. Due to the strain the metal puts on her body, she is usually tearing and damaging her tissue and muscles slightly. These parts increase her natural ability to recover from them, though she requires routine physicals for proper care and maintenance. Equipment Ogre Arms: Yuu's cybernetic arms function as her main form of weaponry. They are large, titanium alloy hands installed with highly advanced computer engineering used for smashing and punching. Her reinforced skeleton gives her the strength to beat through buildings without an exorbitant amount of stress on her organic parts. In addition, her arms have been designed to transform themselves as needed, usually into a pair of large machine guns. Firing specialized armor piercing 7.62mm bullets tipped with a special silver and steel alloy, they are powerful enough to blow holes in concrete walls with ease. Seven magazines inside each arm are swapped in and out with a series of complex parts, each holding forty-five bullets. Spent shells from one magazine are ejected, followed by the magazine itself, continuing until she is out of ammunition. Each hand only has four fingers. Spine: Yuu's spine is a secondary weapon. Attached at the base of her back, some of it protrudes from her skin and hangs behind her like a tail. It can be extended and use for stabbing due to its sharpness. This is, however, dangerous to use, as separating her vertebrae make her more susceptible to having her back broken. Radio: Yuu possesses a radio system located in her left temple. She can send and receive verbal communication through it. It was destroyed after a plane crash caused her to bump her head hard enough to shatter it within her skin. Trivia *Her approved character sheet can be found here. *Yuu is a crossover of the Black☆Rock Shooter character Yuu Koutari. In addition, the player has cast her voice actress from the series, Kana Asumi to play her in a fictional animated series based on Dusk Crusade. *It is likely her growth was stunted as a result of the metal in her skeleton weighing her down. *It is heavily implied she has a crush on her doctor during the events of the story Girls Night Out. Category:Character Category:V.W.A.T. Category:J.N.V.D.O. Category:Cyborg